At NaturalMotion we develop games that redefine the standards on mobile. Producers are the driving force within teams, owning the planning and path to achieving the highest quality product in line with the General Manager’s vision, removing obstacles along the way. In 2018 & 2019 NaturalMotion Studios were named one of the Best Places to Work in the UK games industry by gamesindustry.biz.
Our Racing Studio - responsible for the CSR Racing franchise - is one of the most ambitious, successful, and creatively inclusive studios in the UK. The team loves welcoming credible talent full of Professional Pride; Ambition; and Humility, who want to do the best work of their career.
Summary and Purpose
As Lead Producer at Naturalmotion Racing team, you will be responsible for the planning and path to achieving the highest quality.
Leading a team of producers, you will empower teams to deliver an amazing game at high quality, on budget and on time. Drive the improvement of the development. As a strong facilitator, you will own the team planning, retrospectives, product review meetings, to ensure all teams have common and clear short and long-term goals. As a supportive leader for the team, you will help developers to stand on common ground and removing obstacles along the way.
Work with risk assessment and risk mitigation planning. As part of your job you will resolve any dependencies and communicate the production status, plans, risk mitigation, and development metrics back to the team and to the studio leadership. You are able to react and make decisions quickly and independently.
This is a lead production role, reporting to the Senior Director of Product Development.
Responsibilities
- As the Lead Producer you oversee the development planning, process, schedule, risks and team structure of a game or a platform version.
- Line Management: Lead and develop a team of Producers.
- Planning and Execution: Working with feature teams, leadership, and partner teams, you will define the work to be done, work with partners and the team to set backlog priorities, ensure ownership, build long and short-term plans, and communicate to all interested parties.
- Communication and Leadership: Own written, verbal and visual communication between disciplines, teams and individuals. Present transparent progress status and risk plan reporting, as well as quantitative production milestone metrics. Keep everyone in sync with plans, and changes as they happen. Provide vision and direction to individuals and teams, provide clear ownership of problem-solving and feature development.
- Release Management: Ensure high quality releases, working with QA, Development, Design, Art, Product, and any other teams to ensure our internal and external releases are well understood, high quality and meet all requirements.
- Process Improvement: Craft the right process for the right teams and problems. Constantly iterate on these solutions through the team retrospectives and feedback to find the best way for delivering game updates effectively and thoroughly through all stages from Concept Prototype to Live.
Required Skills & Experience
- A Lead Producer with full production cycle experience from Concept Prototyping to Launch and Live Operations
- Proven ability to lead and mentor producers
- Highly capable and experienced in Agile SCRUM, Kanban, team management, long and short-term project scheduling and execution
- Strong status and risk reporting skills including executive-level project reporting
- Experience in leading large multi-disciplinary teams, developing towards specific deadlines and delivering to a world-class quality bar
- Effective at bringing order out of chaos, excellent prioritization and decision-making skills
- Experience with implementing and improving release process
- Capable of being responsible for a project, expected to define best practice and mentoring to the more junior members of the group
- Influential through in-person and written communication channels. Effective in one-to-one as well as one-to-many communication. Effective team collaborator and meeting facilitator.
- 6+ years of related game development experience, mobile game development experience
- Experience with distributed teams a plus
What Do We Offer?
- Competitive salary, discretionary annual bonus scheme and Zynga stock allowance
- Contributory pension scheme
- 25 days holiday, plus public holidays and Christmas shutdown
- Private medical care and healthcare cash plan
- Life insurance and critical illness insurance
- Discounted gym membership and free weekly yoga class
- Flexible working hours
- Free fruit, snacks & soft drinks provided daily, as well as free lunch on Fridays
- Annual season ticket loan and cycle to work scheme
- Summer and Christmas parties and Happy Hour every Friday
NaturalMotion is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, pregnancy, marital status or veteran status.